News from trente oiseaux

The new trente oiseaux website is up and has already more or less replaced this site on blogger.com. The trente oiseaux online store is integrated in the new website, but has its own URL and can be visited directly.

There is important news regarding the digital distribution of trente oiseaux's releases: we have entered a business partnership with Echopolite.com. Echopolite offer trente oiseaux's catalog of net albums, both single tracks and full albums, in form of streaming and downloads in mp3 and FLAC format. In the near future ordering CDs via Echopolite's website will be possible, too. Trente oiseaux will continue to offer full albums only, for download in wave format and as CDs, so that albums downloaded from trente oiseaux can be written to CDR and/or converted to any other format without any detour. 18 albums previously only available on CD have been added to trente oiseaux's digital catalog and 37 albums are currently available via Echopolite, whith more to come.

We hope that the partnership with Echopolite will make trente oiseaux's releases known to a new and larger audience, and we are pleased that the option of streaming our albums is now available to listeners world-wide.

According to best practice, label and distributor have agreed to adopt equal pricing: Echopolite charges € 7.99 for a full album in mp3 format and € 9.99 in FLAC format ( which is less than their standard pricing ), trente oiseaux charges € 9.99 for an album as either download or CD. For Echopolite's pricing for single track and streaming subscriptions, please visit their website.

The direct links from this website to our online store do not work any more because of some important technical changes we had to make, and and it is not clear yet if and when we will be able to update them - there is a lot of other things to do right now.

New releases on trente oiseaux

Trente oiseaux is pleased to announce the release of two new net albums:

Our first album released in 2012 is Akós Garai - Til Ødslig Horisont, TOC1201, a re-release of the Akós' excellent album originally released on trente oiseaux in 2005. We're happy to make this fine work available again as requested by numerous listeners.

The second album in 2012 is Luca Pissavini - MetaStanze, TOC1202. It presents music improvised by Luca Pissavini on prepared upright bass and live electronics, with no overdubs. Luca is a double bassist, electric bassist, composer, performer and painter, a versatile improviser and open minded musician living in Milan, Italy.

Coming releases in 2012 will be the first album of brachklang an improvised music duo of Bernhard Günter and Ingo Weiss, and the second album of improvised music by Bernhard Günter and Dorothea Krishnabhakdi.

Brachklang and Luca Pissavini are also planning to perform and record together this summer, which with a bit of luck will result in yet another interesting album to be released on trente oiseaux.

Trente Oiseaux's net albums are online again !

All of trente oiseaux's net albums are available for download again, and we now offer mp3 versions of the releases along with the FLAC versions that were to sole available format for quite a while. All mp3 files are at 320 kBit/s to assure a decent sound quality, adding AAC4 versions will probably be the next step.

The next releases planned are: Bernhard Günter's 'Monochrome White / Polychrome w/Neon Nails' and 'Monochrome Rust / Differential', originally released as two double albums on Richard Chartier's LINE label - whether these will once again be presented as two double or rather as four single albums is still undecided. Also planned for the near future are are-releases of Ákos Garai's 'Til Ødslig Horisont' and the original versions of Bernhard Günter's 'Un Peu de Neige Salie' and 'Détails Agrandis' as first released on Selektion, Germany in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Bernhard still has to find the time for designing new covers for these albums, but they will hopefully be online soon.

Trente Oiseaux free net albums not available for the moment.

Megaupload, one of the biggest Filehosters in the world, has been taken down by the FBI yesterday. They may have hosted illegal content, but this was not the case of the free net albums offered by trente oiseaux that are not accessible any more for the moment.

We have begun working on a new solution that I hope will soon be functional. I have been offered webspace by two fellow musicians so that the new solution will be a private one, and I'll report on progress on this site and using the Google+ profiles of trente oiseaux and myself.

Bernhard Günter, 21 January 2012

about trente oiseaux

Trente oiseaux was founded by Bernhard Günter in November 1995 and began releasing ground-breaking work by artists like Francisco Lopez, Steve Roden, Reynols, Matt Shoemaker, Richard Chartier, Japanese Duo Kuwayama/Kijima, Tomas Phillips, Keith Berry, Bernhard himself, and quite a few more. Bernhard never hesitated releasing a first CD by an hitherto unknown artist when he considered their work worthwhile. The label built a solid reputation among listeners of contemporary electro-acoustic and improvised music and was arguably an artistic success.

In spite of a world wide net of distributors and good reviews in numerous publications, it wasn't, however, as successful economically. So when it became clear that sales weren't covering cost any longer ( invoices not paid by distributors didn't exactly help ), the label stopped releasing CDs by the end of 2005 after a short period of releasing CDRs. Bernhard reluctantly decided to sell out the remaining stock of CDs and call it a day for trente oiseaux.

Now, 13 years after it was founded, trente oiseaux has returned as a web label distributing music by download exclusively. The technological means nowadays available make it possible to return to releasing music without the immense financial risk a label selling sound carriers can incur, and Bernhard is more than pleased to see his label become active again.

The first web releases on trente oiseaux comprised a couple of Bernhard's albums no longer available on CD, Bernhard first album released only on the web, and the CDR releases mentioned above are also coming back as web releases distributed by download. Simon Whetham's 'Understory' was trente oiseaux's first new web album.

On 14 July 2009 trente oiseaux released 'Tori no Kaigi', a compilation presenting a selection of contemporary electro-acoustic and improvised music by fine artists from all over the world. Tori no Kaigi consists of four individual albums and ca. 50 pages pdf booklet available for free download from trente oiseaux's blog – don't miss it! At the same time Bernhard decided to open the cage and set the birds free: all of trente oiseaux's web albums are now available for free download on this website, and so are klangstaub musik's, at total of 21 albums so far, with more to come.

Many CD releases from trente oiseaux's catalog can also be ordered from our online shop.